The crisis in the Middle East has now gotten even worse: the kidnapped Palestinian teen believed killed in retaliation for the kidnapped and killed three Israeli teens was burned alive, an autopsy now shows. This all is apparentely part of the Bibical and now cliched “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” but the barbareity of kidnapping and murdering kids to make political statements has now been taken to a new (low) level with news that Mohammed Abu Khedair was burned alive:

Mohammed Abu Khedair, a Palestinian teenager who was abducted and killed in Jerusalem this week, died from being burned alive and hit with a blunt object to the head, according to Palestinian General Prosecutor Mohammed al-Auwewy, sourcing the medical autopsy.

Al-Auwewy said the autopsy discovered traces of smoke inside the lungs of the 16-year-old , meaning that it was inhaled during the burning.

Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said his country is aggressively investigating the killing. “We’ll get to the bottom of it and catch those responsible,” he told CNN on Saturday.

The teenager’s death sparked widespread outrage among Palestinians and clashes with Israeli security forces broke out during his funeral on Friday.

More than 60 people were injured in fighting in parts of Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a group that said it was involved in evacuating injured Palestinians. It said the injuries mostly involved rubber bullets fired at the upper body and chest.

Israeli police said 13 of their officers were slightly injured in clashes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat, where Palestinian protesters were throwing rocks at police, who responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas.

Here’s a CNN report:

Sometimes an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth simply results in people being unable to see or unable to speak out about a general ill that impacts an entire society, not only their own part of society.

Is snatching kids off the street and murdering them to make a statement now going to be a key part of the political game by extremists on both sides?

Even in war (and the Arab-Israeli ‘conflict’ is war) there are limits, borders, lines one does not cross.

This is barbaric.

ordinarysparrow

Could there be anything lower than killing the children of those that are deemed ‘other’?
How could anything ever…ever… ever good come from this kind of action?
If Hell is created here on earth by one’s thinking and actions, then the murders of children such as this must be living in an inferno beyond imagination.
How tragic for this young man and his loved ones..

SteveK

Yet in taprooms, both in Israel and the US, there are those giving each other ‘high fives’ and buying another round.

Smiles and “cheers.”

jdledell

It is interesting, as well as disgusting, to read the comments to this story in the Israeli newspapers. If you have the stomach read the Jerusalem Post or YNET which are in English. The Hebrew Press is even worse in it’s commentary. I only read one Arabic paper (my Arabic reading skills are much worse than my talking and listening ability in Arabic) but the commentary is not any less disgusting.

Like many politicians in the US, politicians in the area seem to be appealing in people’s baser instincts. Until some politicians become leaders with the long term good of both peoples in the hearts and heads, the conflict will continue and many more will suffer needless deaths.

Barbarities are barbarities, not Israeli or Palestinian. We’re seeing a lot of beyond-the-pale stuff like this everywhere. The media seem to exacerbate it, egg it on, stir up “tribal” resentments.

Maybe we’re at the point where barbarism is fueled almost entirely by greed. Media, after all, are the “winners” here, whether we’re talking about the more obvious profiteers like Fox or maybe, in this case, the Jerusalem Post.

Or maybe (as so many believe) it’s just the natural outcome of a world that’s getting more crowded. Even at this great distance (Texas), I admit to having felt profound sorrow as farmers were dispossessed and watched as their trees were cut down to make room for apartment buildings in the West Bank. That’s not a political statement. It’s just noting a common human reaction to change and urbanization that we all feel at one time or another. Of course, it’s a whole load more painful if it’s your farm…